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Making it clearer exactly how it works - yes please.
Making it cheaper - I don't think it's very likely to happen, my take on the Combining Your Abilities sidebar is that they intended for magi to have somewhat tricky action economy;
As a magus, you have multiple special actions and abilities that can be used in combination with your spells. You can enter your Arcane Cascade stance with either Spellstrike or a normally cast spell, so it could be in your best interest to cast a spell to buff yourself at the beginning of a fight and enter Arcane Cascade, rather than going for an early Spellstrike. You can usually stay in Arcane Cascade for a long time, though if you find out an enemy has a weakness to a certain damage type, such as fire, you might want to refresh your stance with a fire spell to take advantage of the bonus damage. It's often worth it to cast your conflux spells and make a Strike either on a turn where you can't make a Spellstrike, or as the last action on your turn after a Spellstrike. Sometimes, it might be worth it to cast a conflux spell even if you think you'll miss, because it can still recharge your Spellstrike for your next turn. Since a lot can ride on your Spellstrike, which uses your multiple attack penalty, it's much better if used as the first attack of the turn!
I think there was a push there to make the magus wider than just "try to spellstrike every round", and one of the pieces is using arcane cascade to lock in to the correct damage type to use weaknesses. Of course, that does require enemies to actually have weaknesses to dial into. Which can vary a lot by campaign.
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I've GMed a few maguses, and I also find Arcane Cascade to be not worth the action outside very specific cases. But it's the overall design of PF2: Most abilities have to be used in specific cases, there are very few abilities that you should spam every round.
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I've GMed a few maguses, and I also find Arcane Cascade to be not worth the action outside very specific cases. But it's the overall design of PF2: Most abilities have to be used in specific cases, there are very few abilities that you should spam every round.Fair, but as classes are built around arcane cascade abilities in theory and it is magus damage boost, it should have some help, unless we just want to spellstrike and charge constantly which is boring.
Spellstrike+Recharge is unmaintainable because of action cost.
I just think you are supposed to adapt your strategy. Arcane Cascade is nice if you can prebuff, if you face a weakness or an AoO enemy. Spellstrike+Recharge is super strong if you don't have to move. It's a question of using the best routine in the best situation, not to do always the same thing.Right now, I don't feel that Arcane Cascade is supposed to be as central as Spellstrike in the Magus rotation. But I may be wrong, I haven't played a Magus myself.
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I haven't found Cascade to be that difficult to use, provided you ignore the obvious error in the requirements.
That said, yeah it's definitely not something I find myself thinking about or using every fight. It's cool for being able to ping weaknesses twice or if I don't need to move at all, but I think that's intentional.
... Ironically, Starlit Span Magi probably have the easiest time fitting Arcane Cascade into their combat routine but it literally does nothing for them.
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I haven't found Cascade to be that difficult to use, provided you ignore the obvious error in the requirements.
That said, yeah it's definitely not something I find myself thinking about or using every fight. It's cool for being able to ping weaknesses twice or if I don't need to move at all, but I think that's intentional.
... Ironically, Starlit Span Magi probably have the easiest time fitting Arcane Cascade into their combat routine but it literally does nothing for them.
They botched the requirement for Arcane Cascade. Someone didn't read the Stance trait very closely when they wrote that unless they really do intend you to cast a spell or use Spellstrike every round to maintain it.
I haven't found Cascade to be that difficult to use, provided you ignore the obvious error in the requirements.
That said, yeah it's definitely not something I find myself thinking about or using every fight. It's cool for being able to ping weaknesses twice or if I don't need to move at all, but I think that's intentional.
... Ironically, Starlit Span Magi probably have the easiest time fitting Arcane Cascade into their combat routine but it literally does nothing for them.
I wouldn't say Cascade does nothing for Starlit Span. Damage boosters that apply to ranged weapons are valuable all on their own. Especially if you are a Starlit Span magus who didn't put any points into strength for a composite or aren't using thrown weapons.
Not saying it's Especially useful for them, but getting extra damage at range is always nice.
Arcane cascade only works in melee. That's why it's not useful to starlit span magus
Oh. I did not realize that about Cascade.
... Ironically, Starlit Span Magi probably have the easiest time fitting Arcane Cascade into their combat routine but it literally does nothing for them.
Yeah, that is something else that probably isn't intended and needs an errata. This time for Starlit Span - to have the damage bonus from Arcane Cascade apply to ranged attacks.
The game balance of that is debatable. But that feels more like what is intended.
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Arcane Cascade is something that needs fairly quick errata. If running it as it is written in relation to the stance trait, it's terrible.
Sure. The Stance trait says that the Stance ends when you stop meeting the requirements.
The requirement on Arcane Cascade is that your last action was to cast a spell.
As soon as you use the action to enter Arcane Cascade, you last action was to enter a stance, not to cast a spell. Therefore you have stopped meeting the requirement, therefore the stance would end.
Obviously, only a ridiculous person would ever actually run the game that way, but it is what the rules say. Therefore, the way Arcane Cascade is currently written is an error that needs correcting.
Yeah, I've used the common sense reading where the cast a spell requirement is to use the action and not an actual requirement to maintain the stance.
Personally, I don't think the action of entering the stance to be an issue. Most battles I've been in or ran start with enough space in between the forces where only the ranged characters open up with attacking; the melee people usually close in; this first round works well for gishes and alchemists to buff up since the melee enemies are busy advancing. Most of the time, when I hear complaints about the action economy of it from the tables I'm in, it's because the player wants their gish to play like a regular martial and all of the power of a gish with none of the drawbacks, or they just don't want to use tactics and just want to cut straight to slaughtering things
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Plus, magus isn’t exactly overflowing with spellslots to buff before each fight.
You don't need to burn spell slots for this. You can trigger Arcane Cascade off of cantrips just fine
Shield -> cascade -> strike/stride/use potion is a perfectly viable turn one.
You don't need to spellstrike every turn to deal good damage
Also, if you are really that close, basic tactics is waiting until the enemies come to you, then spellstriking and entering cascade. Winning initiative means choosing when to go, not going first, and sometimes it's better to wait
I've GMed a few maguses, and I also find Arcane Cascade to be not worth the action outside very specific cases. But it's the overall design of PF2: Most abilities have to be used in specific cases, there are very few abilities that you should spam every round.
Most stances are supposed to be used every combat, though. Think of Monk stances or Fighter's Dueling Dance or Paragon's Guard. They are not supposed to be used in niche scenarios, they are supposed to be used every single encounter.
It just should be free (or stop being a stance and allow magus to use it outside of combat scenarios), melee Magus action economy is still hard to deal with without the cascade action, as most people play the class most of the time. It would not even be that much of a buff to Starlit, since they barely care about it since they can spellstrike all day and they have no core abilities tied to it like Iron or Tree.